Saturday, 30 July 2011

Wow 2

Whatever you do, don't try too hard to work out what's going to happen next! At least not when you're blasting this brain boggling beauty for the first time! It's Japan's legendary nutbar deconstructionists: Boredoms! Here's their 1993 full length 'Wow 2', released jointly by Avant and Disk Union Records. This album was recorded live in the studio in NYC during a break in their US tour (before heading out with Nirvana and then Brutal Truth!).. Don't let that 'L' word put you off, this is crisply captured stuff! The clarity of the recording gives the tracks a general feeling of unfettered looseness and does nothing to diminish their essential immediacy.. It sounds like the majority of the songs could well have been improvised in the studio.. Except for the fact the band just sounds so freakishly welded together at all times. Whether they're stopping dead as a doornail all of a sudden.. Or accelerating with joyous abandon into cartoonish explosions of musical mayhem.. Which naturally means plenty of squeaky toys and honking sax noodles in the background! Of course on top of it all there's Yamatsuka Eye's (as he was called then) singular vocals.. Twitchy screeching, unhinged gibbering.. Never far away from another hooting mumble-shriek! Driving the rest of the band along with the jerkily infectious insanity of it all.. Never gaining too much momentum, as they're far too busy crashing straight into one brightly painted brick wall after another! Ah well, it passes the time..